arranged chances
by sojustflywithme
Summary: Two Shot / an arrangement that will complicate things but might make them easier too.. / Niley / NickxMiley


I am laying in our backyard just tanning and listening to the radio playing a sweet song on a sunny day in our home in New Jersey as my little 14 year old sister Noah skips over to me and sets herself down next to me Indian style.

Grinning she looks at me and I can feel that she wants me to ask her why she is so happy. "I don't feel like playing games Noah so just tell me.", I say and her smile falters a little bit but soon comes back even brighter, "Frankie is finally coming back next week since summer is almost over and he said that he wants to take me out." Frankie is Noah's first crush and he seems to like her a lot, too. He went on tour with his older brothers for the summer.  
"And as I heard Nick is coming to live here again."

These news let me sit up straight. Nick, my ex best friend who left me as he got the chance to become a singer. Not that I'm not happy that he gets to live his dream of being a musician but we somehow couldn't stay in contact. I called and texted him but his replies were either short or he didn't even bother to answer me two and a half years after he left for California.  
"Why would he do that? Did the California sun burn away the rest of his brain?", I snap at Noah.  
"I don't know why he's coming back but maybe you should talk to him. The two of you were inseparable before he left and if I remember correctly he almost didn't go because he didn't want to leave you alone."  
"Well, he may have done that but that's four years ago and I'm not 16 anymore waiting by the phone just cause he said that he would call. " "Just give him a chance, Miles."

* * *

A week later it was time for the gray family to come back and since we're neighbors we are waiting for the Gray family to come back home as my dad is picking them up from the airport. Noah even baked a cake for them and stayed up the whole night just because she is so excited. I just hope that Frankie won't disappoint her.

The big car arrives in our driveway and Noah immediately jumps up and runs to the car hugging Frankie as soon as he gets out of the car.  
Watching the two I remember about how Nick and I used to be like that whenever we haven't seen eachother for longer than a day. "Hey Mi. You still look more than beautiful.", I hear his smooth voice whisper into my ear and a shiver goes down my spine.  
I spin around, glare at him and walk off back into the house, leaving a dumbfounded Nick behind.

A few seconds later he comes running, or more like fast steps, after me, "Hey, Mi, what's wrong?"  
Ignoring him I start to make my way into the kitchen and get the lasagna out of the fridge, Nick's mom, Denise, taught me how to cook and while she was gone for the summer I tried to make the lasagna as good as she does. Even though I don't think that it ever will be perfect, I just wanted to surprise her by showing that the cooking lessons are helping and I can now cook for my family after my Mom left.  
Nor that my dad can't cook, it's just that it's either a little too long cooked or to short so it's still frozen.  
Nick sighed as he realized that I won't answer him, "Miley, come on. You're my best friend and we haven't seen eachother for so long and now I only get a glare?", he chuckles at the end of what he's saying while my face keeps showing no emotion.  
"Is it because I hugged Noah first? If it is: I'm sorry she just came running towards me I never thought that all of her excitement was for Frankie. During the tour he did only talk about her if I look back at it now." And another chuckle. When he's done talking silence surrounds us. The only noises that could be heard came from the living room where the rest of our families are.

I continue prepping everything for dinner and Nick just keeps staring at me as Kevin walks in. Since I stormed into the house after that awful encounter with Nick I haven't really had the chance to welcome back the rest of the Gray family. "Kevin!", I almost scream and hug him tight, "I missed you!", other than his younger brother Kevin always stayed in touch with me probably because he lives here in New Jersey when he doesn't have to work with the band. His wife Danielle is one of my best friends and helps me with most of my life problems. As far as you can have them at the age of 21 and being in college.

As soon as I let go of Kevin I can already feel Joe's arms around me and he lifts me up into the air. "And you didn't miss me?", he pouts and lets go of me. "I did, Joe, trust me. Every time I saw you on TV I started to cry just because I missed you so much." Joe puts a hand over his heart and sighs, "Just what I wanted to hear." We both laugh as Nick clears his throat, "Miley could I talk to you? Alone?." I stare at him for a second just to go back to get things ready for dinner ignoring him once again. "I think she doesn't want to talk to you.", Joe states the obvious and I can see Kevin nod from the corner of my eyes, "You think I don't see that?!" Sighing Nick glares at his brothers who soon leave the kitchen leaving me and Nick alone once again.

"Please, just talk to me Mi. I wanna know why you're acting like I don't exist."

"It's Miley and I don't act like you don't exist I just chose to ignore you." With that I brush past him and walk into the living room where the rest of our families is.

* * *

A week has passed since the Gray family came home and Nick has tried to talk to me everyday.

Sitting on my balcony I let the sun fall onto my skin and I don't even hear that someone opens my door and walks into my room. I only realize it as that someone sits down next to me and I can feel him staring at me. "I don't want to talk to you Nick." "But I wanna talk to you. Looks like we kinda have a dilemma here, don't we?"

Groaning in frustration I scoot away from my once best friend so that our legs aren't touching.

"And since you don't wanna talk I think that I'll just say something and when I'm right you're gonna say yes." I roll my eyes and catch the smirk that's on his face. "Remember how we used to play family in that tree house our dad's built for us?", he says as he looks at the old and probably already rotten tree house. I sigh again and get up, ready to go inside as he grabs my wrist gently and stops me from walking. "Mi, please just talk to me. I can't handle you ignoring me." "I told you that it's Miley.", I yank my hand away and walk into my room.

* * *

Demi, one of my best friends from High School barges into my room as I'm trying to relax with a good book, "Miley. We're going to Atlantic City!" "What? We can't just go there." "Yes, we can cause we are going to celebrate this!", Demi says and shoves her hand into my face so I can see the simple yet amazing engagement ring sparkling on her finger, "Wow, I can't believe he asked you!", I say and jump up to hug her.

"I can't believe it either. He took me out to dinner and a drive in movie and he was acting kinda weird and at first I thought that he just had to pee cause he was squirming the whole time, you know how he has to pee all the time and then he just popped the question. Not as romantic as Kevin's but it was awesome.", she tells me the whole story as fast as she could in her excitement.

As soon as Demi is finished Danielle runs into my room, "There's my future sister in law!", she says and hugs Demi as tight as she can, "That's so great. Joe talked about doing it right after tour but almost everyone believed it would take him at least a month to grow some balls to propose. Now they all owe me ten bucks!" Danielle smiles big and lets go of Demi. "You're gonna come to Atlantic City with us, aren't you?", Demi asks with big eyes. "Of course ,but you're not gonna elope or something, are you?" Shaking her head Demi plops down next to me on my bed, "No, I want my princess style wedding!"

* * *

A day later we're all sitting in Danielle's car as she's the one driving to Atlantic City, "I still can't believe that you somehow managed to get me to agree to come with you.", I say and lean my head against the window. "Come on, Miles. We're gonna celebrate my engagement and it would be boring to do it at home.", Demi answers with a big smile on her face. "Well, not everyone in this car has a rock star fiance or husband."

"Don't blame us that you never told Nick about your little crush on him when you had the chance to.", Dani says softly. Sighing, I stay silence for a moment, "It doesn't matter now anymore. I tried to talk to him for such a long time and ignored me." "And now you're ignoring him." "I'm not doing it as revenge. I just feel like he's not my best friend anymore. We both changed and didn't talk for such a long time and we don't really know eachother."

"You should give him a chance so you can get to know eachother again. He really wants the two of you to go back to how it used to be before he moved to LA for work.", Demi says. "I don't think that it would work. We're too different and if he really wanted that he could have come to me earlier than after 5 years of not really talking." And with that the conversation about this topic is over for me and my two best friends in the front seat realize that and so we just quietly drive until we arrive in Atlantic City.

* * *

Walking into a club the three of us head to the bar as soon as we see it. "I still can't believe that I actually came here.", I say and shake my head. "Us, too.", Demi and Danielle said in unison. I fake gasp, "Hey, I'm not that antisocial." "Of course you're not, that's why you haven't had a boyfriend in almost two years.", Dani says sarcastically and smiles at me as I glare at her, "Well, I like staying single and being ready to mingle." The alcohol from my drink is already getting to my head since I'm not someone who can handle alcohol very well and I already know that I will have either a hangover or if I'm lucky just a headache tomorrow.

The night goes on and I find myself actually enjoying the time I spend with my friends and even though they're both off limits for the guys in that club, they flirt and dance, getting a free drink here and there.

You can't say that I'm drunk when some guy sits down next to me and buys me some drinks but I'm not sober enough to make any heavy decisions which I realize the next morning as I wake up in a hotel room with said guy. He's still sleeping as I pick up my clothes and hurry out of the room.

* * *

My head pounds and the thinking my brain does isn't helping the headache at all. What have I done? I slept with a complete stranger. I've never done this and I never wanted to do this. Hell, I haven't even slept with my last boyfriend whom I've dated for almost a year til he broke up with me because I didn't sleep with him. The only guy I ever slept with was Nick and only because he somehow managed to get us some alcohol on my eighteenth birthday and we thought that giving eachother our virginity wouldn't be a bad idea since we were still best friends back then and didn't want the other one to lose it to someone we don't love. So to sum it all up the only person I ever slept with is Nick.

Although I have to admit that the guy made me feel good and wanted which I haven't felt in a long time but maybe it was just the alcohol. I slowly tip toe out of the room and walk as fast as I can back to my own, hoping that no one saw me.

Shutting the door behind me, I lean against it and let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

I couldn't wait for this trip to be over tomorrow and I hope that I won't ever see that guy again, even though the only thing I could see was that he had pretty muscular arms and dark hair.

* * *

A week later Demi was already planning the wedding even if she wanted it to be in summer next year so I haven't really seen her since we came back from Atlantic City and Nick didn't bother me as much as he did when he first came back either so I was actually relaxed. But I knew that it wouldn't last long because the moment someone knocked on the door to my room I knew it meant trouble.

I sigh and answer the door, "What do you want?" "We need to talk!", Nick says and just walks in. "Whatever floats your boat." We walk out onto my balcony and just sit there in silence for a while. "You wanted to talk, so maybe you should start talking.", I say with an attitude, looking out into the backyard. "Remember how we used to play family with everything, even a wedding?", Nick asks and I just nod, not knowing in which direction this talk with go. "Well, we're technically married then, so I just want you to tell me why you've been ignoring me since I came here." "Nick, that wedding was just two kids playing and nothing real." "I know that but the one in Atlantic City wasn't." My eyes widen in shock as he says this, "What?" "They send me the bill for my room yesterday and it came with a DVD from the wedding chapel there and it showed us getting married." "Oh!" "Yeah, I talked to my mom and apparently it wasn't coincidence. Our parents arranged that and our best friends helped them by getting us drunk and planting the idea of marriage into our heads."

"Why?", I close my eyes letting all this information sink in. "I don't know, but you have to believe me that I didn't know about this at all." "I do believe you. I just don't understand why they would do something like that." Nick sighs and leans his head against the wall, "Same here."

We walk down the stairs together with as much space inbetween us as possible as Nick's parents and my dad are sitting on the big sofa in the living room. "Since you now know that you're married we can talk about this.", my Dad says as I sit down next to Nick. "What's there to talk about? You practically forced us to have a drunk wedding instead of just talking to us and telling us to sort things out.", I say a little angrily. Denise sits up straight and looks at me, "Honey, we didn't just do this so the two of you would sort out whatever happened in the past but there is a reason we just can't tell you right now because we don't want to upset or hurt you." "The not upsetting me part kinda backfired because I am upset, I am mad even. And now you don't even want to tell us why you arranged all of this, because as far as I know normal parents don't want their kids to get drunk and marry some stranger in Atlantic City or Vegas or wherever." "Nick is not a stranger, bud.", Dad says. "Yes, Dad, he is. He has been for the past four years because we didn't really talk and when we did it was one sided from me!", my voice gets louder and I get up from my seat while saying this. Nick gulps audible and looks at me with big eyes, "Is that why you have been ignoring me?" I sigh, "Well, why else would I be mad at you? When I tried to call you, you either didn't pick up or didn't have time and said that you'd call me back but never did. When I texted you, your replies where either short or you didn't even respond. I felt like you forgot me and that hurt really bad.", I can feel the hot tears at the brim of my eyes ready to spill so I run up to my room and slam the door.

Falling right onto my bed, I bury my face into my pillows and let the tears fall down my face. The door opens softly and seconds later a small hand is stroking my hair, "Miley, you have to understand that there is a good reason why we arranged for the two of you to get married because we knew that you wouldn't agree to it. I know that my son was a jerk to you but give him a chance.", my sobs get quieter as Denise speaks and only tears are flowing down my cheeks. "When we came to California before the tour started and Frankie told Nick all about how he had planned to ask Noah out for their first date when we would come back here, Nick realized that he missed you a lot and that he hasn't heard from you in a long time. He missed you even before that but at that point he wanted nothing more than to come back and be with you again. Just try and let him into your life again." Wiping the tears away with the sleeve of my shirt I sit up and nod, "I just thought he forgot me or found someone better and I couldn't live with that." Denise smiles at me, "Trust me he didn't. There's something else I have to ask you. Please don't be mad at your dad for what we all did. He just wants to protect you." "I won't be mad but why didn't you all just talk to us?" "The two of you are just too stubborn for that.", Denise laughs and pulls me into a hug, "And now that you're my daughter in law I want you to call me mom."

"Denise, this marriage is not real somehow and even though you have been like a mom to me all my life I can't just do that." "There will be a time in the future when you will do that, trust me."

I smile sheepishly and soon after that Denise leaves my room again only for Nick to walk in.

"Your dad said that I should move in here or that we should get a place of our own but I told him that this marriage only exists on paper and that we won't move in together on anything like that." Waiting for him to continue I just look at Nick, the guy who is now my husband by an somehow arranged marriage, "He answered that he's okay with us not living together as long as we don't get an annulment or divorce." Nick lets out a big sigh and sits down on one of the plush chairs in my room, "I'm fine with it as long as you are." "I am.", I whisper.

* * *

Two months later Nick and I are kind of friends again seeing as how our parents make us hang out together when I get a hysterical call from Noah saying that she's at the hospital with Dad and Braison because Dad was in an accident

As I tell Nick that I have to leave, he just takes my hand and somehow manages to get me into the passenger seat his car, while he drives us to the hospital Noah said they were at.

"Frankie is with them and already texted me the number of the room they are in.", Nick says as he checks his phone while we walk through the hospital doors. Taking my hand he leads me to the elevators and presses the button. Somehow the feel of how is big hand is wrapped around my small one makes me calm down a little and I scoot closer to his warm body. He seems to realize that I need comfort now and lets go of my hand only to wrap his arms around my waist and pulls me into his side, "Everything is going to be okay.", he whispers comfortingly into my ear as we walk down the corridor to where my siblings and Frankie are. Noah jumps out of Frankie's arms as she sees us, "Dad is awake and we already went in to see him. He said that he wants to talk to you.", Braison tells us and Nick lets go of me so I can walk into the hospital room, "You too, Nick.", Noah says before I can even take a step towards the door. Nodding Nick opens the door for us and lets me in first.

"Hey Daddy." "Hey bud. Don't worry about me okay?" As I look at my father lying there in the hospital bed I can get myself to tell him that everything will be fine because he is hooked up to different machines and he looks broken with cuts on his face and arms. "How am I supposed to not worry, Dad?" "Just promise me that you'll take care of Braison and Noah." Hesitating slightly before I nod in response. Nick takes my small hand into his again and squeezes it lightly.

"I asked you to come in, too Nick because I think that it's time the two of you know the real reason of your kind of arranged marriage.", he takes a deep breath and continues, "I'm sick. I have cancer and I've known for a while now but couldn't get myself to tell you. I wanted someone to be there for you and take care of you, Miley and as I told your parents, Nick, they agreed that they would help our family whenever I wouldn't be here anymore. That's when the idea of your marriage came up."

I gasp and step closer to Nick, he hugs me tight to his chest. "I think we understand, Billy.", Nick says, "And I promise you that I will take care of Miley. And of course Braison and Noah, too."

My mouth is dry and my brain can't form words so I just stay silent hugging Nick as close as possible. "Please, take her home, Nick, it looks like she needs some rest." "I can't just leave you here, Dad!" "The doctors said that I still have some time so don't worry now and let Nick take you home.", My father says in a tone that I just can't obey so Nick and I walk out into the hallway again to our siblings, motioning for them to follow us outside. When we're in front of the hospital we tell them that Dad said we should go home and get rest and come back tomorrow.

The younger one's get into Braison's car as I settle down in Nick's passenger seat again. "I'm here for you. I hope you know that.", Nick says softly as we drive off of the parking lot onto the streets.

* * *

**A/N: this is _part one of my two shot_.**

** I had this idea some time ago and just stored it away on my phone's notes app but when I was bored in RE class I just started to write and that's what came out so far.  
At first I wanted to finish the thing in one part but I like to make a break here because it fits better with the stuff that will happen later :)  
Well, I hope you like it and I think you know the rest :)**

**[[ And Yes I just realized that in my stories no one ever gets married the traditional way :P ]]**


End file.
